A Very Merry Yule
by Child of the Muse
Summary: When Fred looses the meaning of that special time of year, he sees a family who reminds him what it's really all about.


**A/N My prompts are 15. Dialogue: "I'm up to my eyes!" 7. "If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." Wayne Dyer 2. Dialogue: "We're running out of time."**

"George, we're running out of time!" It was thirty minutes to the final countdown before the store would have to close, and the lines were unrelentingly relentless. He could hear the heavy breathing and scurrying of footsteps across the floor. The sounds of rustling wrapping paper or the pop of a sucker. The earsplitting screaming of a spoiled child begging their parents for something or the other. The disheartening noises of parents insulting their children and commanding they keep up was angering.

The store was hot and Fred had more than broken out in a sweat. In fact, he was panicking. The line wrapped all the way around the store and if they didn't get everyone's orders in, there would be a riot. People came to _their_ store to spend money when they could have gone to others. So they had a lot on their shoulders. He'd told George weeks ago that they'd needed more people for this time of year. And because his twin disagreed with him, both they _and_ their employees were suffering.

"We need more people! I'm up to my eyes here!"

"We already have everyone working the registers! If you wanted more people, we should have hired them when I said to!"

"Yeah, well it's not enough!"

After running a hundred present from only one witch, he was getting overwhelmed.

"What about the dummy spell? Can we program it to check people out?"

"I suppose so. Merlin, 30 minutes before yule and we're overbooked!"

He barely heard George over the yelling of the people in the crowd.

Fred stretched out the registers one by one as each dummy took over the new spots created, taking galleons, knuts, sickles, and all other assortments of magical money into their registers. He watched disgustedly as people trampled over each other in the rush to get their presents bought. He watched in horror as a small child was trampled and he literally had to leave his line to pick up the small toddler who had been knocked down in the flurry. Did these adults have no hearts? Apparently not. The mother picked up the child without thanking him and left to get her present, scolding the baby for not keeping up.

Fred was thankful when the night was over. Because of quick thinking and lots of helpful dummies, they were able to get all the presents to their exuberant buyers on time.

It used to be that during this time, Fred was filled with joy. It was a time for practical jokes, having their mother yell at them, and spending time with their family. But now, it was all about the darker side of humanity and how cruel this time could be.

"I hate this time of year."

"Why?" His twin was always especially curious about what he thought and felt.

"Yule used to be a wonderful time of year. But now it's all about presents, greed, ignorance. All people do is ignore their children, spoil them with presents they're going to forget about, and buying their children's good behavior all year. I thought it was supposed to be about something _more. _Do you remember when we got our apparition license and mother told us that we needed to stop appararting everywhere?"

"Hah! I remember. I loved it when she said we didn't need to use magic for everything just because we could."

"And she freaked out when we started making the knives fight each other."

"I like when we covered Ron's room in spiders."

"The look on his face was priceless."

"There were so many days back than that were priceless. Where did the time go?"

"I guess you just need to be thankful for the moment. You never know when it's going to disappear."

"Too true."

The night was bitter cold and biting, making a blush appear on our cheeks as we closed up our shop for the night. On the way home, we were walking with our wands out, as we never left the money in the shop. But at the same time, we didn't want to be attacked and lose our earnings, hence the wands. As we walked by a restaurant, we saw a family in an alley around a small fire. They were dressed in practically nothing but rags, sitting cross legged in the snow. Much more poor than even _we_ used to be. Their clothes were torn. And the father had a magically fixed guitar in his hands, and they were all around a fire singing yule tide songs. Even though they had nothing to be joyful about, they found a reason to smile.

Instead of placing the blame for being poor, it only brought them closer together.

"Fred, where you are going?"

"I'll be right back brother."

He walked to the others sitting around the fire.

"Hello, I'm Fred."

The poor kind man smiled. "Hello Fred, I'm Bill. This is my wife Cheryl, my daughter monica, and my son arthur."

"Arthur...that's my father's name."

"Ah, well your father must be a fortunate man to have a son like you to take care of him."

"Actually, he passed away recently."

"Oh son, I'm sorry to hear that."

"He always made this type of year special."

"Well, you should always be thankful for who you have left. Because as long as you have a family, you are the richest man in the world."

"If I may ask, how did you guys get like this?"

Cheryl spoke up. "He tried for every job he could possibly get. But no one would hire him. We don't even have a house because the ministry took it."

The decision was easy. "Well Bill, how would you like to come and work for mine and my brothers joke shop?"

Bill smiled. "That would mean the world to me."

He smiled as he handed the man a small pouch of money that carried about three hundred galleons. Hopefully that would be enough for a family of four. "That should be enough to buy food and clothes for your family. And don't worry about the room. Just tell Tom at the Leaky Cauldron to put it on Fred Weasley's tab until you can get a place of your own."

"Thank you son, thank you!"

"Happy Yule sir."

"Happy Yule." He gathered up his family and walked to the leaky cauldron as Fred walked back to his brother, who was smiling at him.

"_That's _what this time of year is all about Fred. It's never been about greed, Santa, or presents. It's always been about family and goodwill towards men."

"Your right. I think I just needed a change, ya know?"

"I've learned that sometimes Fred, if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."


End file.
